VGA Games
VGA stands for Video Graphics Array. VGA was released by IBM in 1987 via IBM's PS/2 personal computer. The IBM PS/2 VGA Display Adapter was the first VGA graphics card. VGA is the successor to IBM PC EGA.
Standard VGA displays in 320x200 and features 256 on-screen colors drawn from a palette range of 262,144 colors.
Standard VGA display memory ranges from 256K to (typically) 1 meg. VGA also supports per-pixel hardware-scrolling, page-shifting and parallel pixel processing.
It took three years for cloners to cost-reduce VGA. Proper VGA games also came out three years after VGA's initial release. By "proper", I mean computer games that actually banged VGA chipsets hard, not just displayed in VGA.
Non-standard Square-pixel VGA Games 320x240
This is a chronological list of the most technically notable IBM PC games that were coded to display in non-standard square-pixel VGA 320x240 as opposed to non-square-pixel VGA 320x200 (4:3 as opposed to 16:10).
To be clear, we are talking about square-pixel graphics at the framebuffer level, not VGA rasterization.
Back in the day, 320x200 computer games appeared to be square-pixel because the analog cathode ray-tube monitor (CRT) natively scaled screen-graphics to 4:3, but the original digital graphics were actually 16:10.
In paint packages such as Deluxe Paint of 1985 graphicians of 320x200 computer games outputted their art assets in squashed proportions in order to anticipate the monitor's aspect ratio, but graphicians were not always consistent: in the same game, on the same screen, you can sometimes see proportional and disproportional shapes. One circle appears propotional, another a prolate or oblate ellipse. Oftentimes, the shapes that appear on the playfield (where the action takes place) are proportional but the HUD shapes are disproportional. e.g., M1 Tank Platoon 1989.
320x240 (Mode X) was not as commonly employed as 320x200 (Mode 13h) because coding 320x240 was much more complicated and largely undocumented until the early 90s.
In 1991 non-standard VGA modes became more common (such as Mode X), improving pixel-display performance and proportions:VGA Mode X: 256 colors, square-pixel 1:1 aspect ratio at 320x240 to 360x480 + page-flipping + parallel pixel processing + per-pixel hardware scrolling.
Non-standard Square-pixel VGA Shoot 'em ups
The following shoot 'em ups display in square-pixel 320x240. For more info on these shoot 'em ups please refer to IBM PC Shoot 'em ups Listed in Chronological Order.
Comanche: Maximum Overkill of 1992 by NovaLogic:
The Last Eichhof of 1993 by Alpha-Helix:
The Flying Tigers of 1995 by Jay Kramer:
Stargunner of 1996 by WizardWorks:
Seek and Destroy of 1996 by Safari Software:
Super Stardust of 1996 by Housemarque:
Nebula Fighter of 1997 by Holodream Software:
More Non-standard Square-pixel VGA Games
Unless otherwise indicated the following games display in non-standard square-pixel VGA 320x240. Black borders indicate that the viewport is not taking advantage of all screen-space. Also, playfield sizes are reduced by score-panels and such-like in most platform games.
Lost Vikings PC DOS 1993
Silicon & Synapse ported their original 1993 SNES version of The Lost Vikings to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1993. PC DOS Lost Vikings features 35 levels of puzzle-platforming. The object of The Lost Vikings is to help three lost vikings find their way home and defeat Tomator.
PC DOS Lost Vikings displays in 256-color VGA 320x240.
PC DOS Lost Vikings was distributed on 1x 3.5" 1.44MB HD diskette and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via PC Vikings Installer and PC Vikings Setup Utility. The install size is 1.7 megs and consists of 3 files.
PC Lost Vikings audio supports PC Speaker, AdLib, AdLib Gold, Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Pro Audio Spectrum, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Roland MT-32 and Roland SCC1/General MIDI.
PC DOS Lost Vikings controls support keyboard, joystick and Gravis Gamepad.
PC DOS Lost Vikings was level-designed by Ronald Millar Sr. and programmed by Bryan Waters.
Note that Silicon & Synapse became Blizzard Entertainment.
Blackthorne PC DOS 1994
Blizzard Entertainment released Blackthorne on IBM PC MS-DOS in October of 1994. Blackthorne does not scroll screens: it is a flip-screen computer game.
PC DOS Blackthorne displays in 256-color VGA 320x240, but its active drawspace is only 256x224.
PC DOS Blackthorne consists of 17 levels of cinematic platforming action. Blackthorne gameplay is Flashback-like.
In Blackthorne players control a warrior called Kyle Blackthorne. Kyle can walk, run, jump, run-jump, vault up onto ledges, carefully drop down from ledges, climb up and down ladders, pick up objects, fire his upgradeable shotgun, draw and holster his gun, throw bombs and face into the screen to talk with prisoners, hit switches and enter doorways. Blackthorne also features an inventory and item cycling.
PC DOS Blackthorne was distributed on 2x 3.5" 1.44MB HD diskettes and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via PC Blackthorne Installer and PC Blackthorne Setup Utility. The install size is 1.7 megs and consists of 8 files.
PC DOS Blackthorne digitized audio supports Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Pro Audio Spectrum and Gravis UltraSound. PC DOS Blackthorne music supports AdLib, Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Pro Audio Spectrum, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Gravis UltraSound and General MIDI. Music and sound effects are toggleable in-game.
PC DOS Blackthorne was level-designed by Ronald Millar, programmed by Patrick Wyatt and Michael Morhaime.
Note that Blizzard Entertainment would go on to develop WarCraft and WarCraft 2.
Superfrog PC DOS 1994
Shiny Entertainment Inc. released Earthworm Jim for Windows 95 and MS-DOS in 1995/96.
PC DOS Earthworm Jim runs in 320x240 at 60 Hz or 320x224 at 72 Hz. Earthworm Jim requires an i80486DX2 33 MHz CPU, 520K of free conventional memory, 8 megs of EMS memory and 1 meg of vRAM.
Earthworm Jim employs multi-layered parallax scrolling, super-scrolling, complex articulated animations and all sorts of fancy tricks.
PC DOS Earthworm Jim was distributed on 1x CD-ROM and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Earthworm Jim Installation and Digital Sound Interface Kit by Carlos Hasan. The install size is 21.5 megs and consists of 7 files.
PC DOS Earthworm Jim audio supports Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster 2.01, Sound Blaster Pro, Pro Audio Spectrum, Pro Audio Spectrum+, Pro Audio Spectrum 16 and Windows Sound System.
PC DOS Earthworm Jim was programmed by Morton Grouleff and Lars Balker Rasmussen.
Lost Vikings 2 PC DOS 1997
Beam Software released Norse by Norse West: The Return of the Lost Vikings aka Lost Vikings 2 for IBM PC MS-DOS in April of 1997. Lost Vikings 2 displays in 256-color VGA 320x240.
PC DOS Lost Vikings 2 requires a i80486DX4 100 MHz CPU, 16 megs of RAM and 2 megs of vRAM. Lost Vikings 2 employs pre-rendered sprites and FMVs. The Windows version requires a Pentium 60 MHz, 16 megs of RAM and DirectX 3.0.
PC DOS Lost Vikings 2 was distributed on 1x CD-ROM and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Lost Vikings 2 Installer by Darren Monahan. The install size is 100 megs and consists of 80 files.
PC DOS Lost Vikings 2 audio is configured via Beam Software's The Voice audio middleware by Adrian Thewlis. The Voice employs sound drivers by Human Machine Interfaces.
PC DOS Lost Vikings 2 supports AdLib Gold, Aria Chipset, Ensoniq SoundScape, ESS AudioDrive, Gravis UltraSound, Gravis UltraSound Max, I/O Magic Tempo, Microsoft Sound System, New Media .WAVJammer, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Reveal FX/32, Roland RAP-10, Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster AWE32, Sound Galaxy NX Pro 16, Thunderboard, Toptek Golden 16 and Vibra 16.
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